RUSH: Look at this SEAL case. You know, it’s almost a mirror. Who does Trump side with? He sides with the military hero, the down-in-the-dirt grunt who does the great, miraculous work, Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL.

Ninety-five percent of the people who go to that SEAL school bomb out. They can’t do it. It’s no criticism of them. It’s one of the most difficult things. You know, the SEALs, the Army Special Forces and the Rangers, they’re the closest that this country has to producing actual supermen. And I guess I should say superwomen in there ’cause I don’t want to get sidetracked here by being accused of gender bias. But it really is the case. Trump is instinctively drawn to the people who literally do the work, as opposed to the establishment flag officers and others.

Call them the establishment and call Eddie Gallagher the guy that gets the work done. Trump just instinctively sides with — I don’t know what phrase — ordinary, average American people who make this country work, as opposed to the haughty, arrogant management tier which sits around and doesn’t do anything and can’t even keep order and discipline.

What happened to Eddie Gallagher is kind of being portrayed as complicated, and it really isn’t. A bunch of people don’t like the guy for some reason. They tried to decommission him, take away his rank and kick him out. Trump didn’t like it. So Trump reinstated his rank. The secretary of the Navy essentially said, to hell with that, I’m not gonna do that, I don’t accept orders from tweets.

So he went up against the president, and the president fired him for essentially disobeying the commander-in-chief and then went ahead and reinstated Gallagher’s rank and his Trident, which is the icon logo, symbol of the SEALs. But it’s far more detailed than that, what happened here. This guy was ganged up on by a bunch of military management people, for whatever reason was drummed out of the SEAL corps. Trump didn’t like it after he found out what had happened and how, and so he’s reinstated his rank and the secretary of the Navy refused to follow Trump’s orders and was fired.

Now the Drive-Bys, “You can’t fire the secretary of the Navy!” Obama, does anybody remember the name Stanley McChrystal? Stanley McChrystal was the general who was waging the war in Afghanistan for Obama. And he was at a bar one day with a Rolling Stone reporter where he was speaking, and the Rolling Stone reporter was writing it down, and it was that meeting where McChrystal called Biden Bite Me.

Obama fires McChrystal. Media applauded it. He applauded it, because how dare this guy disrespect our beloved Obama and vice president Bite Me. We owe the name Bite Me to Stanley McChrystal. He got canned. Military admirals and generals get canned all the time, largely for failure. The Brits back in the 17 or 1800s literally shot admirals that failed in their duty. One famous Brit admiral was literally shot for failing to hold a military fortification that he’d been ordered to hold. He failed, they shot him.

No, I’m not advocating that generals and admirals and all that be fired. I’m just telling you that this is not an uncommon thing. The president is the commander-in-chief. The JAG Corps does not determine things like what happened to Eddie Gallagher. If the president wants to pardon him, if the president wants to pardon Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, he can do it, and there’s nothing the JAG Corps, there’s nothing the admirals can do about it, and yet they stepped in and they tried to supersede Trump’s pardoning of Gallagher.

I’m really giving you the compressed version of this. And because Richard Spencer, the secretary of the Navy, refused to go along with what Trump’s order was, he’s now fired. It’s amazing how close this is, how similar this is to what was happening with Trump and the civil service corps, the administrative state within the national security apparatus and Ukraine.

They didn’t think Trump knew what he was doing, so they didn’t have to implement his orders. And so Trump says, well, if you’re not gonna do that, then screw you. I’m gonna go around you. I’m gonna send Rudy over there. I’m gonna do my own investigation. I’m gonna make sure that what I do in Ukraine is based on what I know, not what you think. And certainly not on what Obama’s done in the past.

So then all hell breaks loose, people like Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, “O say can you see,” get their noses out of joint ’cause they’re no longer listened to. So it’s not complicated at all, and the president has the — it’s ridiculous to have to even say this. If the president wants to fire the secretary of the Navy, he can do it. In this case he was fully warranted.

Look. Discipline, following orders, it’s crucial in the military. If that breaks down, then, you know — the left has gotten too far in corrupting too many of the institutions in this country. I read a piece by Kurt Schlichter today at Townhall on the Eddie Gallagher story. And let me just give you his recounting of this so that you can have the details.

“Here’s what happened. The president used his constitutional prerogative to pardon or otherwise restore the rank of three accused military personnel, which some of us in the military community had mixed feelings about but which some flag officers vehemently opposed. The most clearly correct action was the restoration of the rank of SEAL Eddie Gallagher. His shameful prosecution had been replete with JAG misconduct, including the mind-boggling decision of the prosecutors to electronically spy on defense attorneys.”

Man, there’s a whole lot of spying going on here in this country. Spying on people who are aligned in a variety of ways with Donald Trump. “Beyond this outrage –” by the way, nobody was prosecuted for spying on Eddie Gallagher’s defense lawyers. “The JAG officers put up on the stand an immunized witness who testified that he killed the alleged ISIS victim.”

This is about a guy who killed a terrorist. He supposedly murdered a terrorist in cold blood. We are at war. We’re trying to wipe out terrorists. This guy was kicked out of the SEALs for committing murder against an ISIS terrorist. The JAG guys put a witness on the stand who testified that he did the killing, not Gallagher. Gallagher was acquitted of everything except he took a selfie with a terrorist’s dead body.

That was his sole offense. You got a terrorist’s body there, and Gallagher took a selfie with the dead body. But Gallagher didn’t kill him. “Well, after the acquittal, the JAGs decided to award each other medals.” They had tried to railroad Gallagher. He was acquitted. They start awarding each other medals. “Not indictments for their eavesdropping antics. Not letters of reprimand for their staggering incompetence.”

They gave themselves medals. This is no different than all of these deep state people coming forth giving themselves medals for sabotaging Trump’s foreign policy, are now trying to impeach him for it. So Trump gets wind of all this, folks. How much of this have you seen in the Drive-By meh? Absolutely zero, right? So Trump gets wind of this fiasco and personally directs that these defective medals that the JAG officers who falsely accused Eddie Gallagher had awarded themselves, he directed that those medals be withdrawn.

Now, “Fast forward to the restoration of Gallagher’s rank and what happens next? The Naval Special Forces commander, apparently the next day, initiated a proceeding to take Gallagher’s SEAL Trident, his status as a special warfare operator.”

So Trump pardons him. It was found that he did not murder the ISIS leader. Trump pardons him. He’s totally acquitted. And the next day the Navy Special Forces comma, i.e., the deep state, the military establishment initiated a proceeding to still take away Eddie Gallagher’s SEAL Trident.

Now, the president was unequivocal what he wanted. He pardoned Eddie Gallagher and demanded that Gallagher’s rank be restored. That is end of story. And yet the Navy Special Forces — and it gives me no pleasure, by the way, folks, to pass these details on to you. There is nobody with greater respect and as much hope for the United States military as I have. But the degree to which politics and the politicizing of institutions has led to their corruption is sadly unavoidable.

So the president pardons Eddie Gallagher, unequivocally states he wants his rank restored and his Trident, and the Navy Special Forces commander publicly defies Trump, disrespects Trump. So that’s when Trump tweeted it, that this was not gonna happen. Trump tweeted that Eddie Gallagher’s rank was not going to be suspended, was not gonna be taken away from him.

“What should have happened,” according to Kurt Schlichter, “is the Chief of Naval Operations should have picked up the phone,” and called the Navy Special Forces commander breathing fire and reading him the riot act, “but he didn’t, and it got worse. Rear Admiral Charlie Brown, Chief of Information, issued a statement reading: ‘The Navy follows the lawful orders of the President. We will do so in case of an order to stop the administrative review of SOC Gallagher’s professional qualification. We are aware of the President’s tweet and we are awaiting further guidance.’”

Meaning, they’re not gonna follow orders from a tweet. They’re not gonna take the president’s orders from a tweet. So there’s open defiance of Trump going on here. Because these people had staked their reputations on Eddie Gallagher murdering an ISIS terrorist. Turns out he didn’t. He was acquitted.

The Judge Advocate General lawyers screwed up the prosecution, gave themselves medals after this. And then after Trump had pardoned Gallagher, the secretary — well, the commander-in-chief of Special Forces Navy tried to take away his Trident even after Trump had pardoned him.

The Los Angeles Times reported, ” U.S. Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer denied a New York Times report Saturday that he had threatened to resign or be fired if President Trump intervenes to stop an administrative review of a SEAL at the center of a botched war crimes court-martial.” That if he doesn’t put an end to this mini-mutiny pronto the president should still Schiffcan him.

Well, he got Schiffcanned. Spencer is gone. And once again, Trump sides with the enlisted man. He sides with the grunt. He sides with the person who was wronged, falsely accused, presidential order restoring his rank was defied. So Trump fires the secretary. The media, “You can’t do that! You can’t fire people, you can’t!” Yes, he can, and he did.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m gonna break the programming format that I alone established, which is that the opening segment is monologue only. I’m gonna go grab a call here, and it’s about the SEAL, Eddie Gallagher. We have here Fred from Fort Mill, South Carolina. Fred, welcome to the program. I know you wanted to weigh in on this.

I’m just getting an additional piece of information that’s basically confirming that happened here was that Trump orders Gallagher’s Trident and rank restored and the Navy decided to just not do it and try to once again remove the rank and his Trident in defiance of Trump’s pardon. And that’s really the root of what’s going on. But you have a perspective on this I think people will want to hear, so what’s that?

CALLER: Yes, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: The admiral involved, he’s a classmate of mine from the Naval Academy, and he’s not a deep stater or back bencher type. If you look at his biography, he is a war fighter, he’s a SEAL himself, he’s been a SEAL his entire career. So he’s being advised by some of the same people who acted unethically during the trial and read the defense emails you correctly identified. And some of the same people who, after being removed from the case, tried to give that guy an award, those are the people who are still advising him that, hey, you had your shot, we had our shot at Chief Gallagher and he was found not guilty, it’s over, leave him alone. Those same people are saying that, hey, you can still do this, and you can do that to him, but that’s not the correct legal advice. And that’s the problem.

RUSH: Are you talking about the JAG office here?

CALLER: Correct. He’s an admiral. He’s not an attorney. And so he’s taking the advice of people who failed at their prosecution of Chief Gallagher —

RUSH: It’s understandable he would trust them, right?

CALLER: Yes. Because they’re naval officers. But as you correctly identified, they tried to give one of their number an award after he did something for which he should have been professionally disciplined by the state bar.

RUSH: It really is incredible. These guys falsely accused Gallagher, then a witness shows up and cops to the murder, “I did the killing, not Gallagher,” Trump sees this, restores his rank and his Trident, and the JAGs gave themselves medals after all of this, even after they botched it.

CALLER: Correct. And that is the problem. The admiral does not know — and we don’t know exactly what happened that day on the battlefield, and I don’t want to get into that because I don’t know that, you know, bad things didn’t happen, but the point is as a matter of law, it’s over, Gallagher is innocent.

RUSH: And should have his rank restored and his Trident.

CALLER: I would agree with that because he’s been found not guilty and the only thing he was found guilty of was an offense for which others were not pushed in a similar manner. Other people have been found guilty of that and either have not been charged —

RUSH: That’s the taking —

CALLER: — to the level that Chief Gallagher was, and that was wrong.

RUSH: That offense is taking a selfie with —

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: — the body, the stiff, as it were.

CALLER: Not something that you ruin a man’s life over.

RUSH: Yeah. Well, that kind of stuff happens. It’s never published. It’s always kept private. It’s shown at, you know, family parties and so forth. But right. It’s not — well, okay. So you know the admiral involved, and your call here is to remind me he’s not a deep stater, he’s a lifelong SEAL himself.

CALLER: Yeah. Do not put him next to Colonel Vindman. He is not somebody who’s — you know, he’s not that type at all. I mean, he is trying to clean up what he sees as a lack of good order and discipline in his community. And this was a high profile issue that he felt he had to deal with. And unfortunately the lawyers who got their hands slapped and lost embarrassingly in court are trying to take retribution upon Chief Gallagher, something they shouldn’t be doing.

RUSH: Right. Exactly. Well, look Fred, I’m glad you called. I appreciate it. I wanted to get to you before time went by and you maybe had to hang up. Folks, there’s even dissension where you think the epitome of order and discipline exists. And you have these judge advocate general department lawyers actually awarded themselves medals after botching the prosecution of Gallagher. He was innocent. He did not — by the way, what is murder of an ISIS leader?

What is murder of a terrorist? I know within the Uniform Code of Military Justice there is you such a thing as cold-blooded murder. When you’re at war with these people it just seems kind of flimsy on its on its face. And I’ll tell you, it reminded me of back during the Iraq war we had another Republican president, and the Democrat Party was trying to undermine him and undermine the U.S. military.

A now deceased member of Congress named John Murtha from Pennsylvania was routinely accusing uniformed military personnel of terrorist acts against Iraqi citizens. And then John Kerry who, by the way, served in Vietnam, would come along and back him up with allegations that American military people were terrorizing innocent civilians and the Democrat Party would pile on. And then these people would be brought up and court-martialed and otherwise charged, and it was all politics.

And then toward the end of the Iraq war, General Petraeus came up with the military strategery to finally wipe all the bad guys out. It was called “the surge.” And it worked. And so for some reason — I don’t remember what it was — they called Petraeus to a congressional hearing to testify over what he had done, what his orders were, what have you.

And the weekend before his Monday appearance, the newspapers were filled with ads sponsored by MoveOn.org, a Democrat organization referring to him as General Betrayus, even before he had testified. And Hillary Clinton was calling him Betrayus, accusing him of lying before he had testified. And these are the same people that came along, “You better not criticize Lieutenant Colonel Vindman — O say can you see — you better not. He’s decorated. He’s Army. He’s military. You can’t criticize Lieutenant Colonel Vindman.”

These people didn’t stop trying to destroy Petraeus. They didn’t stop trying to destroy Ollie North. So when I saw this whole story, and all it took for me – because I know Trump. I mean, I know how Trump thinks, who he is, is my point. He sides with the SEAL, particularly if the SEAL’s exonerated. The SEAL did not commit the murder for which he was charged and put on trial. He was found guilty of taking a selfie with a stiff, terrorist stiff. So they took away his Trident, took away his rank. Trump, “This is an outrage.” Restores it in a pardon. And they still the next day began a procedure to take away the rank again, in utter defiance of Trump.

And what had he done? He had sided with the enlisted guy. Just like in Ukraine, Trump did not side with the learned experts of the civil service. He relied on people he instinctively trusted. And Rudy Giuliani is just one of the names. He had his own people in the chain there that he was listening to and trusted and believed. And these other people get their noses out of joint and in some cases are engaging in the same kind of behavior that the JAG officers behaved in simply defying the presidential pardon.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To Milwaukee we go next. This is Tom. Great to have you with us, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello there. Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: I’d just like to make a comment on what you said earlier about President Trump pardoning Gallagher —

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: — and how other people in the military, I think Secretary Spencer, were not listening to his order.

RUSH: They were defying it! It’s not that they were… They were defying it.

CALLER: They cannot do that. He was commander-in-chief. During Korea Harry Truman fired Douglas MacArthur, because Douglas Mac Arthur didn’t listen and wanted to continue that war, and he told him to stop. He brought him home and fired him. He’s the commander-in-chief; they have to listen.

RUSH: That’s absolutely right. Well, as I pointed out, Obama fired Stanley McCrystal. The guy was running Iraq. Military generals, naval admirals, Air Force generals get fired all the time for failure. It’s not uncommon. You just never hear about it. In this day and age, getting fired for failure, you know, Millennials think that’s when you succeed is when you fail.

So getting fired for failure? (sobbing) “That’s so mean. God, that’s heartless. How can you do that? They tried, didn’t they? Oh, my God.” Well, you know, trying in the U.S. military doesn’t get you anything. Victory is the reason the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines exist. Victory. Winning. That’s why they are there. Now, McChrystal got fired because he was in a bar consuming adult beverages with a friend of his, and there happened be to be a Rolling Stone reporter there.

In fact, it might have been even a stated interview with McCrystal knowing what was going on. I’ve forgotten. But that’s when he referred to Vice President Biden as “Bite Me.” He had no respect for Biden giving orders, didn’t think Biden knew what he was talking about. So the reporter asks him about, “Well, what about when Vice President Biden?” McCrystal said, “Bite Me?” Vice President Bite. So Obama had no choice but to get rid of McCrystal. Of course, when Obama did anything, it was fine. Never a controversy. Never a scandal. Everything explainable and everything understandable. Tom, thank you.